2018-03-22

The March meeting of COBA was called to order at 7:00pm. We started with the blessing and pledge of allegiance. We had announcements followed by a short business meeting then the presentation.

The meeting started with some announcements:

1). Osu Okc plant sale will be April 4th from 7:00-5:30. Held at the teaching green houses.

2).Garden festival in the park will be May 19th from 9:00-4:00. Held at will rogers gardens conservatory. Applications are available upon request.

3).urban mission 3737 N. Portland April 28th from 9:00-1:00

Business meeting called to order at 7:10pm

Old business-

1).OSBA needs nominations for officers. Ideas for speakers. We voted to have the fall conference catered.

2).We are still working out the details on the new shadowing mentor program.

3). A sign up sheet will be available at the nest meeting for the existing mentor program. So anyone who wants to be a mentor can sign up and anyone looking for a mentor can find one close to them.

4). The decision made at the spring conference was to leave the booth at the state fair ran by OSBA.

5). OSBA voted and decided there will be no honey sales at the booth at the state fair this year.

6). Dawn Schantz will bring a hive to will rogers gardens for the new shadow/mentoring program.

New business

1). COBA has been invited as a club to do the winne the poo event at the myriad gardens event. The event will be held June 8th-!7th. We will take a COBA banner for the table. Any honey sold has to be in bears. Health department will require all people to individually turn in their status ( Hobbyist or Bottling company) so proper fees can be assessed individually. All people selling honey must have state sales tax certificate made readily available. A 15% fee on all sales will be required.

2). Anyone wanting a t-shirt can go to lettering express in okc they have our logo on file and can make any t-shirt $6-$12 (long sleeve short sleeve or tank) or hoodie in any number or color you would like. Just tell them you are a COBA member.

3). We may have found someone who can host the extractor for the north west side of town.

The business meeting was called to a close at 7:30pm

Presentation is on making splits:

There are many ways to split your hives.

Buying nucs

Buying packages

Stove top or stack splits

Two box splits

And more than a dozen more ways

One of the most important key aspects of making splits is queens. Are you going to graft your own queen? Are you going to buy a bread queen? Are you going to buy queen cells? Are you going to use swarm cells you find upon inspection of one of your other hives? You need to do some research into what might be the best option for you when it comes to queens because what works for one wont necessarily work for another person.

In Oklahoma when splitting hives you need to consider the size of the hive you are splitting because in Oklahoma generally you will not make very much honey if any if you split the hive to much. So you need to think about what might be more important to you honey or more hives.

Another thing to look at is disease. If you had a hive that died and you are starting a new hive to replace that hive you need to determine what the previous hive died from. You need to do some research some about different diseases and take the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of what ever it was.

You will need at least 2 frames of brood lots of bees and a frame or two of honey to make a split. Always when splitting a hive you need to feed them for at least the first two weeks until the can get established. If you are using cells in Oklahoma you need to check the weather to make sure we will have sunny weather so the new queen can take her mating flight. Check the new split about once a week to make sure they are getting established and make the necessary measures to make sure they survive.